Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1960)

PROGRAMMING PAY TV PRESSURE TACTICS HIT Fund for the Republic report criticizes opponents, proponents The handling of the pay-tv controversy has been so thoroughly botched and bungled that an intelligent answer to the issue is hard to find. But there is "no valid reason" why pay-tv tests should not be conducted — but "under strict standards" and with Congress writing out the "prescription" and seeing that it's adhered to. These conclusions form the essence of a 12-page report, "To Pay Or Not To Pay," published last week by the Fund for the Republic's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (Closed Circuit, March 21). It was written by Robert W. Horton, former newsman, and as in all such publications by the Center, the author is responsible for both factual content and conclusions. Opponents • Mr. Horton charges that opponents of pay-tv distorted the issues by making it appear, under the FCC's 1957-58 test plan, that pay-tv stations would carry no free programming when in fact the FCC's plan required that they carry free as well as paid shows. He charges also that they lobbied extensively and stirred up "grassroots" movements against the project, meanwhile making "expensive gestures of lavish hospitality and contact with members of Congress." CBS is cited as having staged a dinner for 315 executives and 700 government notables, but also is quoted as denying it hoped to influence votes by this exclusively entertainment affair. In the end, the report continues, the Senate Commerce Committee "apparently yielded to strong outside pressure" and requested the FCC to postpone the 1958 experiments, which the FCC did. Proponents • "Whatever the tactics of the opposition,", the report asserts, "the record shows that the proponents of pay-tv also share responsibility for the public confusion that surrounded the attempt to set up their experiment." The proponents are accused of being especially vague about fees, talking in terms of $2.50 for a baseball game or $3.50 or more for a Broadway play, when actually it is "reasonable" to think that "fees of a nickel or a dime would finance programs that even the most prosperous sponsor under existing conditions could not afford." The paytv promoters also talk about offering "different" programming — but generally specify types that are already on the air and make little or no mention of "the educational potentialties" which some people feel may be "pay tv's greatest public value." The report continues: "The question is whether a radical departure from the existing system of television broadcasting, such as pay tv, should be permitted to invade an important area of the public interest without some guarantee that it would serve that interest properly. Bar Advertising? • "The FCC can extract guarantees from the newcomer. It can prohibit advertising, for example. It can insist upon concrete displays of his ability to perform a public service .. . "Once the large sums needed to organize pay-tv operations are definitely committed, a vested interest is bound to be established. If the operations are allowed to continue for three years under the loose regulations now proposed by the FCC, any attempt to correct major policy mistakes during or after that period will meet with powerful resistance. The FCC itself has suggested the possibility of trouble ahead in that direction, but it has not had the strength or the determination to minimize it beforehand. "If the experiment is undertaken — and there is no valid reason why. under strict standards, it shouldn't be — then an informed Congress should write out the prescription immediately and make sure that it is adhered to. Questions • "An effective prescription requires a thorough appraisal of existing attitudes and practices in sponsored tv. Are they consistent with the basic requirements of the law? Is the law consistent with the needs of broadcasting in both its private and its public characters? Is the existing law being administered competently? Would the introduction of pay tv require any change in the basic philosophy of broadcasting? And, finally, should the FCC be abolished? Should it be replaced by an agency responsible only for granting licenses, as well as for regulating the licensees' and networks' performance? "Only Congress is competent to answer these questions.'" One other conclusion in the report: Tv is too potent to fooi around with. It is a forceful media. SETTLEMENT NEAR SAG and producers resume negotiations An early conclusion of the three-week old strike of the Screen Actors Guild against the major movie makers was looked for Thursday (March 24) as representatives of SAG and of the Assn. of Motion Picture Producers resumed negotiations after a recess of nearly a week. With agreement in principle reported on the major issues of contention, presumably all that was left for the negotiators was to dicker over the amount of money the producers would pay to the union in the form of "past credit" payments and whether or not the payments made by the producers to the actors for the use of post1948 theatrical films on tv should include a provision for those pictures which had lost money at the box office. When the strike set in. March 7, there were three major unresolved issues. First was a SAG demand that the pro BRO ADCAST1NG, March 28, 1960 128